Hi guys, I’m after some advice on the expanda bed end covers, what is good bad and are they even needed? I have seen canvas ones that look very constricting and also screen style covers...
Any experience with these would be greatly appreciated.
Easty
@EASTY,
@Simo’s and tam’s and any other newbies following on. Do yourself a favour and season your canvas bed ends before your first outing. The canvas is mostly water proof, its the stitching that will let you down. In the manufacturing process the sewing needle creates a large hole which is then only partly filled by a tiny non water proof thread. The internal zipper material is also not water proof and in the rain the stitching will wick the water though and into whatever is touching it, especially the zipper material eventually soaking it. Its not a fault, its common in all tents. Seasoning is the repeated soaking and drying particularly any stitching, which will cause shrinkage and close all the needle holes. For a complete job, finish by proofing the zipper material. I use Nikwax as my proofer of choice and Ive never had leakage issues in any on my 3 vans. Follow this and you wont either.
The wicking process is very obvious in the pic; its so soaked there are beads of water running off it yet the canvas is quite dry
The current is our 3rd canvas bed end van, and 2nd Expanda. All 3 had only shade mesh flies (home made) and they were/are great. We had no issues with water and leakage anyway (as per above) so we never needed anything more than the privacy that mesh provides plus the shade mesh folds up inside the lid, which I prefer. The current van came with a purchase sweetener, the Jayco storm cover. We still have the shade mesh attached. The storm cover is a bit of a nuisance to install, in my case because it wont fold up in the lid. Because our bed end is competely water proof, so we have no need for a "storm cover". We rarely use storm cover but after getting smashed on a handful of occasions with extremes in temperature both hot and cold, we discovered the storm cover is enough to create a pocket of air that adds some thermal resistance to the bed end.
So although I don't have any need to actually purchasing one, Im glad Ive had it for the handful of occasions we've used it particularly for the cold.